Ray Wilkins has rejected the accusation that player-power cost Luiz-Felipe Scolari his job as Chelsea manager, but expressed his "shock and disappointment" at the Brazilian's demise.

Wilkins, the assistant first-team coach, will oversee Saturday's FA Cup match against Watford before Guus Hiddink, the newly appointed temporary manager, takes full charge on Monday.

"It's totally untrue (that Scolari lost the dressing-room)," said Wilkins. "There is no player power at this club, the results unfortunately have not been what Roman [Abramovich] wanted and that's why the change of manager.

"Whenever any coach coaches a club as big as Chelsea, any player that doesn't play is going to be disgruntled, that's a fact. They want to play but he can only pick 11 people. The players that were playing would have loved Felipe, the players that weren't would have had an indifferent opinion.

"That has happened from year dot in football. If you are not in the side the manager is a so and so. We have got big players, they all want to play and it has been very difficult for some of them to accept the fact that they weren't selected.

"Every coach will have different training methods, some players will like them, other players won't. That's what happens in football clubs but we certainly don't have a split, none whatsoever and we hope to display tomorrow that is the case.

"There have, I suppose, been too many changes over the past couple of years. But these things do happen at football clubs and you need results."

Wilkins will now work alongside Hiddink, but admitted that he was unsure of his own long-term future. He did, however, pay tribute to Scolari.

"He is a very decent man, I enjoyed working with him immensely, but a couple of results went against us," he said. "Football is all about opinions and, in my opinion, we do have a number of special players.

"I don't really see that it is a desperate situation, we have a couple of indifferent results, that is all we have had. We have some very talented players at this football club."

Scolari, though, has claimed that the side "isn't Brazilian enough", lacks a special player after missing out on Robinho and suffered due to Didier Drogba's collapse in form.

"At Chelsea we don't have the player who can make the difference by himself by producing something magical on the pitch," said Scolari. "We miss that. I don't know why. In the past, [Arjen] Robben was at Chelsea and he could make the difference. But now there is no one.

"Robinho could have been this player. He is not afraid to dribble, to take a risk. As a Brazilian, I like this. My team isn't Brazilian enough. It is a 'bureaucratic' team. That's the style of my players. That's why Robinho would have done a lot of good for the team."

A recurring question during Scolari's time at Stamford Bridge was over his reluctance to partner Nicolas Anelka, the Premier League's leading scorer this season, with Drogba, but the Brazilian claimed he was unable to do so because of an imbalance in the squad.

"I don't have those players, so I have to adapt. With my squad it's very difficult to play with Drogba and Anelka up front," he said.

"I don't have the players to play on the wings in that system. [Salomon] Kalou can play on the wing in a 4-3-3, but not in a 4-4-2 because he doesn't defend well enough.

"With Anelka and Drogba at the front, who would play on the left? And in the middle? If we played 4-4-2 we would lose the battle in midfield. So, I have to choose between Anelka and Drogba. And Drogba lacks a lot of confidence at the moment. After two or three big injuries, he is missing something. Drogba doesn't have enough confidence, so I choose Anelka.

"Malouda, at Chelsea, isn't the Malouda from Lyons," Scolari said. "He is OK, but he isn't the same that he was with Lyons. He doesn't make the difference in games any longer.

"In Brazil [as a club manager], it was also easier," he said. "I knew everything about the players. Here, I don't have a family relation with the players. Everything is on the pitch. Outside, there is nothing.

"I do not understand why we don't play well. Sometimes it's a problem with the players' positioning on the pitch. Sometimes we give the ball away too often. There are also individual mistakes. The injuries also make things hard. When you add all these things together, the situation is very complicated."

He was, he claims, able to manage top players with big egos – "we all have egos" – but never really got to know his Chelsea players.

"My relationships with the players are good on the pitch," he said. "It is true that they are not the same as the relationships I had with my players in Portugal, but I spent five years there.

"We don't have time to work tactically, because there are so many matches in this country. We work on very specific things with the defence and the attack – especially set pieces. But the midfield requires a lot more time. We only have 15 minutes here, 10 minutes there to work on that and it is not enough. Unfortunately, the midfielders don't work a lot.

Scolari was criticised by some for his insistence on playing full scale practice matches ahead of league games, but again he defended his coaching style.

"In Europe I know the manager doesn't usually do that. But in Brazil, we do it very often. There, if there is a game on Saturday and another one the next Saturday, we play 11 players against 11 on the Tuesday and the Thursday.

"It helps work the positioning of the players, the set pieces. It's tactical work and I think it can help the team here."